I swear, it's like these weather experts want huge destructive storms so they can stand there and comment "Oh, it's so terrible! All those poor people who couldn't evacuate! All that destruction! Isn't it wicked cool?" I can see them standing by their satellite images, cheering the storms on.

And those news anchors who go stand out in the storm in their little rainjackets clutching their microphones, making serious faces while looking like tools and trying to get knocked over by the wind.

I wonder if my bookie would let me update my predictions in the fourth quarter of games? I'd have a great winning percentage then too.It's a nice gig he has. Toss out some numbers before the season starts, get press coverage and get called an expert. Change those up or down thru the season depending on what actually happens. Hope no one compares your final estimates, made 2/3 of the way thru the season, with what you started with. Claim success and throw some darts at the board to get ready for next season.And "named storms" means tropical storm or hurricane.-KM4-

Browncoat:So much for global warming causing more numerous and more intense hurricanes.

To be fair, two low activity years isn't any more conclusive on that point than one high activity year was. I'm not aware of a solid scientific consensus on that matter, but looking at three summers worth of data won't tell you much of anything.

For Fark's sake, if anyone could really predict these catastrophes I know a dozen property-cat reinsurers that would hire them at a small fortune...they wouldn't be relegated to employment at any (let alone second rate) universities.....

"But measured by the combined strength and duration of those storms, this September was actually the least active in the Atlantic since 1997, the National Hurricane Center said. That is because most of the September storms were weak and short lived.

In 2006, his team forecast nine hurricanes, five of them major. Instead, there were just five hurricanes, two of them major."

Can the people who watched The Inconvenient Truth get their money back?

You can...but expect to be called out as some kind of science-denial troglodyte. You gotta recall...back in the 1970's when people weren't nearly as smart as now, we were all going to die in an imminent ice age.

craig328:You gotta recall...back in the 1970's when people weren't nearly as smart as now, we were all going to die in an imminent ice age.

How many times does this one have to be shot down?

Seriously, if you'd just tell us how many times it has to be pointed out that this whole claim is based on One Single Article in Newsweek, which has since been retracted and a 1000 word apology issued wherein Newsweek called itself "spectacularly wrong" for publishing it

Deucednuisance:Seriously, if you'd just tell us how many times it has to be pointed out that this whole claim is based on One Single Article in Newsweek, which has since been retracted and a 1000 word apology issued wherein Newsweek called itself "spectacularly wrong" for publishing it

Actually everyone's favorite global warming modeler--Hansen was also of that opinion:Link (new window)

Deucednuisance:craig328: You gotta recall...back in the 1970's when people weren't nearly as smart as now, we were all going to die in an imminent ice age.

How many times does this one have to be shot down?

Seriously, if you'd just tell us how many times it has to be pointed out that this whole claim is based on One Single Article in Newsweek, which has since been retracted and a 1000 word apology issued wherein Newsweek called itself "spectacularly wrong" for publishing it

(http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2006/20061024143134.aspx)

for it not to be trotted out in every single farking climate thread, we could just do it all at once.

Really, how many times? Just give us a number. We can do it, if you'd just give us the farking number!

Gee...I don't know. I have a better idea: how about you actually have something constructive to bring the argument as opposed to knee-jerk crap? I was alive and recall with clarity evening television news reports and such that went on about the next ice age. Sorry if the intarweb or YouTube doesn't have those broadcasts available for today's viewing...but they still happened nonetheless.

I didn't bother to quote an article because I wasn't referring to one. However, if you like, you can follow along here if you like.

BTW, being a know-it-all really means you ought to know something at least about the subject...not just what you heard some other guy on the intarweb say who was relating what his friend's dog-groomer's husband's brother-in-law said.

Deucednuisance:Seriously, if you'd just tell us how many times it has to be pointed out that this whole claim is based on One Single Article in Newsweek, which has since been retracted and a 1000 word apology issued wherein Newsweek called itself "spectacularly wrong" for publishing it

One article? How about the National Science Board (according to the Washington Post):In 1974 the National Science Board, the governing body of the National Science Foundation, stated: "During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade." Two years earlier, the board had observed: "Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end . . . leading into the next glacial age."Link (new window)

There were also books published on the subject, etc. Global cooling was by no means a scientific consensus, but it certainly had more supporters in the 70s than "one article"

GoldSpider:The fact that "global cooling" has been debunked does nothing to support any of the global warming/climate change theories.

Did I say it did? I simply disputed the claim about the prevalence of a global cooling hypothesis in the 70s that amounted to "we're all going to die".

Craig328: Sorry if the intarweb or YouTube doesn't have those broadcasts available for today's viewing...but they still happened nonetheless.

I note the notorious unreliability of eyewitness testimony.

For instance, you claimed, above, that:

craig328:You gotta recall...back in the 1970's when people weren't nearly as smart as now, we were all going to die in an imminent ice age.

The wiki you cite said:

This hypothesis never had significant scientific support, but gained temporary popular attention due to press reports following a better understanding of ice age cycles and a slight downward trend of temperatures from the 1940s to the early 1970s.

Perhaps you'd enlighten us, given your stated hunger for "constructive ... argument" how a lack of scientific support and temporary popular attention equate to

we were all going to die in an imminent ice age

since you remember it so clearly.

And, just so the anecdote-o-meter reads zero, I was in college in the 70's and recall no such hysteria.

"Lorenzo has tied the Atlantic record for fastest intensification from a tropical depression to a Category 1 hurricane--twelve hours. Hurricane Blanche of 1969 was the only other storm on record that intensified from a tropical depression to a Category 1 hurricane in just 12 hours"

"Felix required just 51 hours to reach Category 5 strength after it started as a tropical depression. That is a truly remarkable intensification rate, considering most tropical cyclones take 3-5 days to organize into a Category 1 hurricane. The only hurricane that intensified faster was Hurricane Ethel of 1960."

Also from the same blog, just so I'm being fair:

"No scientist has published a paper linking rapid hurricane intensification rates with global warming. While the cases of Humberto and Felix are certainly unique, the year 1969 also had two storms that were very similar in their intensification rates. A quick look I did at historical intensification rates don't show any noticeable trends, and I think that the rapid intensification rates of Felix, Humberto, and Wilma the past three years are not far enough outside the statistical norms that we need to invoke climate change as an explanation. Still, it does leave one wondering, and climate change could be affecting hurricane intensification rates."

Still, remember that a hurricane is just a big heat exchange machine, fed by warm oceans.

Deucednuisance: Seriously, if you'd just tell us how many times it has to be pointed out that this whole claim is based on One Single Article in Newsweek, which has since been retracted and a 1000 word apology issued wherein Newsweek called itself "spectacularly wrong" for publishing it

But I remember articles being published and discussions (pro and con) about the issue in science magazines. This global cooling business in the 70's was far more widespread than one issue of Newsweek.

Hmm, I was unaware of that cite. Thanks. Still, I'd like to read the original article, rather than the ellipsised quote from the speaker, who had a clear anti-anthropomorphic change slant. Which is not to take away from his argument, that in 2003 the point was not entirely settled.

I don't think we can drawn anything about the coming ice age being "imminent" from that speech.

But in the interest of fairness, I'll retire the "one single article" claim.

But, I will not likewise retire from railing against those who try to argue that it was a widely-held, and widely promoted hypothesis. That it was not is pretty obvious.

Again, thanks for the cite, and I hope I can find the original report. Seeing as I work in the Library of Congress, I'd wager that I can.

vinraith:To be fair, two low activity years isn't any more conclusive on that point than one high activity year was. I'm not aware of a solid scientific consensus on that matter, but looking at three summers worth of data won't tell you much of anything.

I totally agree. But I think what Browncoat was referring to was the incessant scaremongering that went on after the 2005 hurricane season. It was a lot of "See!? Look at what global warming has DONE! This is proof! Get used to it! Every year will be like this!" And now we've had 2 slow years in a row, but there's no one saying, "Oh hey, guess we might've been wrong about that."

Not that anybody really expected them to... Where is idsfa and his "moving the goalposts" picture?

Hurricane forcasting is directly related to the profit margins of the big box stores ( Home Depot, Lowes and Wal Mart) because the media here in Tampa goes into "rabid dog mode" everytime the wind blows more than 30 MPH. Shame on all of them. As far as the reply about New Orleans looking like it just went through a hurricane, the people that live there need to get up off thier government supported ( welfare, food stamp ) lazy asses and help re-build that city. But then again, anyone in thier right mind WOULD NOT live in a city that is, A: Below sea level and B: located where it is surrounded by water already!!!